JPMorgan’s giant hiring spree as bankers defect to Citi

JPMorgan has lost a lot of managing directors (MDs) this year. Vis Raghavan, the bank’s former head of global investment banking, keeps hiring them for his new job running the investment bank at Citi. It’s not clear how JPMorgan feels about this, but in a possible of sign of tetchiness, JPMorgan has let the Financial Times know that it’s been hiring too. And it’s been hiring more than Citi. 

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The FT says JPMorgan has added 100 senior bankers in the past year, and that this is “significantly” more than in previous years. An unnamed JPMorgan insider says the bank has hired “stealthily” and that it’s hiring still.

Who are all JPMorgan’s new senior recruits? The FT names Kamal Jabre, who arrived unexpectedly from HSBC, and Gerry Lee, who’s joining from Goldman to be the global chair of investment banking. There are some ex-Citi hires too, including Anthony Diamandakis, Citi’s former finest sponsors banker, who defected to JPMorgan when Citi unexpectedly promoted a former corporate banker from India to be his co-head in March this year. 

Alongside Diamandakis, the FT says JPMorgan has hired three other MDs from Citi this year (Eduardo Miras, Theo Giatrakos and Keith Heller).  However, the reciprocal flow, seems more gushing: Citi has recruited at least 10 bankers from JPMorgan since Raghavan’s arrival, and Citi is thought to have many more JPM people on its shopping list. Citi insiders say the senior JPMorgan bankers who arrive there also bring juniors from their teams. 

JPMorgan’s declaration of hiring might, therefore, be read both as a means of persuading its people to stay (“look at everyone who wants to work here”), and as a show of strength (“look at all our bankers”). Insiders at the bank suggest there was some “freaking out” as the Citi resignations stacked up this summer.  

Equally, though, there are people at JPMorgan who suggest the exits to Citi are no big deal and that Raghavan is simply recruiting his former lieutenants, who weren’t really that good anyway. At least one of Raghavan’s Citi recruits is thought to have been let go by JPMorgan before Citi hired him. 

Either way, JPMorgan’s 100 new MDs shouldn’t really be a surprise. Irrespective of Citi’s raid, JPMorgan flagged its intention of hiring senior bankers at its May 2025 investor day, when it also declared that it had added 1,000 bankers at all levels since 2022. 

In May, JPMorgan equally revealed that it had 900 MDs in the corporate and investment bank, making the 100 new hires an increase of 11%.  JPMorgan said its 900 existing MDs had an average tenure of 15+ years there. Its new hires will bring a new culture; long-tenured JPMorgan MDs who don’t like that know where they can go instead. 

Separately, if you think leaving a banking job in London is hard, try Tokyo instead. Bloomberg reports that it’s not unknown for senior managers in Japan to refuse to accept resignations and that for this reason, bankers there pay “resignation agencies” to help them get over the line.

Two Japanese Citi people – Ken Yoshikawa in equity sales and Rick Soo, his junior – seemingly did not employ an agency. Bloomberg says they tried and failed to resign last week and are both expected to stay at Citi.

Meanwhile…

Bankers love Milan and its tax breaks which involve a flat tax for new foreign residents of €200,000 a year on any foreign income and assets for up to 15 years. “A few years ago the only people that lived in Milan had known each other since they were children, it was very local.” (Financial Times) 

British banking stocks fell on Friday amidst fears of a new tax on their profits. Government insiders are playing this down. “Just because a think-tank proposes something doesn’t mean we are going to do it.” (Financial Times)  

Lloyds’ CEO Charlie Nunn said: “We already have the highest tax regime on the financial services sector of any major economy. But it is important when you look at the competitiveness of the City of London and the financial services sector, that we remain a competitive tax regime.” (Bloomberg) 

Naguib Kheraj, the former CFO of Barclays might be the new chairman of HSBC. (Sky) 

Goldman Sachs’ President and Chief Operating Officer John Waldron sold 18,244 in company stock, worth $13.6m. (Reuters) 

Jason Barron, head of global markets at UBS says the business is thriving and that headcount has increased 15% since the Credit Suisse integration. “It’s helped us gain share in champion businesses like equities, financing and FX, and allowed us to accelerate in areas where we were underweight, like the US and in fixed income trading.” (IFR) 

Ex-Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam has got a new book which says his career was derailed by racism and that as one of few prominent Black graduates of France’s top schools he found it suspiciously hard to get a first job in France, ending up instead at US consultancy McKinsey. (Financial Times) 

Urs Rohner and some other ex-Credit Suisse senior executives agreed to pay $115 million to settle a shareholder suit alleging they failed to maintain adequate risk management, resulting in losses between 2020 and 2021. (WSJ) 

Citadel Securities’ second-quarter net trading revenue, declined 8.4% to $2.39bn. (Bloomberg) 

Gerald Beeson, the chief operating officer of Citadel, says he took a risk early in his career when he went to work for 24-year-old Ken Griffin instead of taking a job at a steady accounting firm. He’s remained loyal ever since and says 50% of Citadel’s macro and equities portfolio managers were “internally developed.” (Barrons)

Men use generative AI 20% more than women. (WSJ) 

A man gave a diamond engagement ring worth $150k to Moore Capital’s treasury manager and now he wants it back. (NY Post) 

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